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12. President Fitz Shot

Show: Scandal (ABC)Date: 11/29/2012

Shonda Rhimes has pulled off a coup with Scandal. She has created a show that has become appointment viewing in an era when we thought appointment viewing was a thing of the past. That she's done so with a soapy melodrama no less, a form that many have written off as a vestigial component of TV drama, is all the more impressive.

Soap opera recapping is an American institution that once took place at the grocery store, and now it erupts on Twitter in real time. These days, so many beloved shows gravitate towards introspection punctuated by periods of violence, but Scandal has gone in the opposite direction, getting pulpy and soapy on the regular. The President doesn't get shot in the final episode, he gets blasted in episode eight out of 22. As a recent panelist on the The Nerdist Writers Panel pointed out gleefully, "She slaps the President in the pilot." Though the President getting shot is certainly a huge spoiler, Rhimes may have found the cure for loose-lipped Tweeters: make every event more exciting than the last one that was spoiled.